Page 71 of The Devil's Playground

I’m pretty sure I’m underground. The cold has seeped in past the cinderblock wall, and the grey cement floor screams ‘basement’ to me. There aren’t any windows so I can’t see, and I can’t deny that that’s not on purpose.

“How did you… why?”

“Oh, Nicolette… I know you know why.”

I do. I don’t want to admit it, but I do.

“Kieran—”

“Do you know how much trouble you’ve caused me?” he asks conversationally. Then, as though he just had a sudden thought, he asks, “How is your mom? Still recuperating?”

I’m not feeling so great, but I’m not so out of it I don’t hear alarm bells clanging against my skull. “What? She’s fine. Why? Why did you ask me that?”

“Just checking.” Kieran shrugs. “I mean, I didn’t want to kill her. I already lost one mom when I was young. Dad was only with your mom for a couple of years, but I thought of her as mine, too. I didn’t want her to have to die to get you back to Springfield, but a little car accident? I didn’t think that was so bad.”

Wha— no. “You’re the one who hit her car? She said it was a hit and run!”

“Well, obviously. I wasn’t going to stick around and get caught. You think I’m new here or something?” He snorts under his breath. “Fucking Haines did.”

My stomach jolts. “What do you know about Haines?”

“That he’s a fucking idiot who didn’t know how to follow simple orders. He’s lucky someone else took him out before I got the chance to.” He pauses, a knowing look on his handsome face. “I’m assuming it was McIntyre.”

“I— I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course not. He probably didn’t want to scare you off with what being in the life’s really like. Not me, darlin’. I want you to know my dark side. You can only love me if you love all of me. Just like I love all of you.”

He’s insane. This… this is insane.

“You don’t love me!”

“If I didn’t love you, I wouldn’t have cared when that idiot informant came nosing around the East End, selling info about the pretty blonde that just started up at the Devil’s Playground. Fuckin’ Fink. He should’ve taken the money I offered him and shut up, but he wanted more.” There’s that laugh of his that haunts my dreams. “Just because I offered good money for anyone who could tell me anything about Nicolette Williams, didn’t mean he could try to extort me, you know? I had to shoot him. Even a goody-goody like you would agree with that.”

Okay. I’m fuzzy and I hurt and I have no idea what he’s talking about. Did… did someone hear my name at the club and realize that Kieran had a price on my head? That’s what it sounds like to me, but Fink? What’s a Fink? Well, who, since he’s dead… and Kieran’s right. If he sold me out, he deserves to be dead.

Still, I’m so lost. I’m in so much pain, too, I’m fucking terrified, and he’s. Still. Talking.

“And then, after I hired Haines to follow up on Garrett Fink’s intel, the fucker tried to double-cross me. I gave him that ten grand to bring you to me. What does he do? Blows it against Rolls fucking Royce. So no Nicolette. No cash. I’m telling you, darlin’, this would have been so much easier if you just returned to me like you were supposed to.”

I shake my head. It only exacerbates the throbbing headache I can’t deny, but I have to. He needs to know.

I would never willingly return to him.

He sighs, ignoring my ill-disguised panic.

“And then, just this last week alone… I had to park outside Sinners’ territory and wait for you to crawl out of their rathole. And all because you thought that pretty boy could keep you from me. But he can’t, darlin’. Not when you’re mine.”

Holy shit.

I swear, there is such a difference in the way that Royce claims me and when Kieran does. Royce… his possessiveness warms me to the bone. But Kieran? My skin crawls, and not just because he admitted that he hurt my mom.

That he killed the guy who told him I was back in Springfield, working at the Playground.

That he hired Miles Haines to basically kidnap me.

That he knows all about Royce and me, and he’s spent the last week stalking me outside of his place…

It’s in the way that, after all of his easy admissions, his hand drops to his crotch, eyes shining bright with lust and hate and murder as he looks down at me.

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